UPDATE: University Housing sent a letter to Brumby Hall residents this morning at 8:42 a.m. with a report of the evacuation. The letter said the fire alarms went off due to “a fire in the trash room of Brumby Hall,” causing the sprinkler system to activate. The letter also said no dorms were damaged with smoke or water. No one was injured as a result of the fire, “thanks to the cooperation of residents and the action of housing staff and emergency personnel.”  “Security of residents is our utmost priority,” the email said. “Therefore residents are required to evacuate the building anytime the alarm sounds.”

ORIGINAL: At approximately 7 p.m. Monday night, the fire alarm in Brumby Residence Hall at the University of Georgia sounded. Students were stranded outside for over three hours after two additional fire alarms were sounded following the initial alarm. When students were evacuating once the alarm was sounded, a resident assistant was heard notifying students departing from the emergency exits, “No, it’s not a false alarm.”

Payton Eason, a freshman psychology major from Villa Rica and resident at Brumby, was worried after hearing that the fire alarms were not false. “I thought this was going to be just another false alarm that we have almost weekly at Brumby. Turns out, there’s actually smoke, and the hall is literally on fire. Now, we’ve been here for more than two hours, sitting out here stranded,” Eason said.

Eason explained she was working on homework when the alarm sounded. “I have lots of homework due tonight at 10 p.m…Unfortunately, all my books, notes, and Macbook are up in the dorm so I guess I’m just stuck here until it’s all clear,” Eason said.  By 8:45 p.m., the alarm was off, but students were still stranded outside waiting for the all-clear from authorities to reenter the building.  Taylor Johnson, a freshman biology major from Columbus, heard prior to being cleared to return to the residence halls that the first floor was flooded from trying to extinguish the fire.

“My friend received a message and said that someone threw something in the trash chute that caught fire. It caused the sprinklers to go off and now the first floor is flooded,” Johnson said. As of 10 p.m., students were still not allowed to reenter the residence hall. By around 10:50 p.m., students began making their way back to their dorms in Brumby.